Online text to speech for sports: Q&A with VfL Wolfsburg

Founded in 1945, VfL Wolfsburg is a German association football club based in Lower Saxony with 5,500 members currently. Its greatest success was winning the German Football Championship (Bundesliga) in 2009. Their home stadium is the Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg with 30,000 seats. The VfL Wolfsburg website is published in both German and English; both versions are speech-enabled by ReadSpeaker.

We recently interviewed Oliver Gliβ, Webmaster in the Media & Communications Department, about his experience with ReadSpeaker.

ReadSpeaker (RS): Why did you decide to speech-enable your website?
Oliver Gliβ (OG): We have decided to offer people with technical or physical disabilities the opportunity to learn about VfL Wolfsburg and have the text read aloud to them, depending on disability. We also wanted to make it easy whether you are accessing the content via a smartphone or on the website.

RS: How did you learn about ReadSpeaker and its solutions?
OG: I found the offer on the internet.

RS: Why did you choose ReadSpeaker?
OG: We felt that the speech tool was very understandable, so we decided to use ReadSpeaker.

RS: How much effort was involved to add ReadSpeaker to your website?
OG: Our technicians have said that it did not take a lot of effort to add it.

RS: How have you benefited from having a talking website?
OG: It supports our commitment to society for people with disabilities or difficulties when it comes to new media.

RS: Would you recommend that other organizations add ReadSpeaker to their website?
OG: This has already happened. In my view, there should be a new standard in the Bundesliga websites specifically to provide a barrier-free website.

RS: Do you have any additional feedback about ReadSpeaker?
OG: Besides the good technical functionality, the support is also very good. You get quick and competent service.

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